Buying Wood

I remember a while ago, during a presentation on his field work in Nicaragua, a certain professor mentioned that you shouldn’t expect to get more than two things done during the day while in Managua. 

I thought about that as I rode the bus home today around 4pm, after a long and drawn out journey to buy wood and tin sheets for bathrooms.

You see, buying wood (or anything) isn’t as easy as walking into Home Depot, loading it into a cart and then packing it up into the SUV (although Sodimac, a South American hardware store, bears an eerie resemblance to Home Depot right down to the signage).  Nope.  First off, in small towns it’s hard impossible to get wood.  Long pieces of 2x4s are coveted more than precious metals.  And you just can’t go to a carpintero (carpenter). Why?  They only work with wood, not sell it. Duh!  So instead, I had to journey out to the regional capital just to get wood for some simple door frames.

I'll give you a play by play of my day, the journey to get wood (heh)….